Truckers under the auspices of the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) have accused some unnamed individuals of hijacking the effort of the task force on decongestion of the roads leading into Apapa, to extort money from innocent drivers.

The Chairman, Dry Cargo Section, of NARTO Alhaji Abdullahi Inuwa, disclosed this in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos.

He maintained that most of the people carrying out the extortion are retired or dismissed service men who decided to take advantage of the traffic situation.

Explaining further he said that they carry out this act after collecting between N40, 000 and N70,000 from drivers to enable them drive against the traffic.

"The existence of the task force has created room for non-service men; those who are retired but maybe they still have their uniforms to take undue advantage of the situation”, he said.

Speaking further, he alleged that; “In the night they take over, in a situation where you will see military personnel arranging trucks numbering more than 30 to drive against traffic. They will drive one-way and the officers will be shooting sporadically into the air to clear the road for them".

Inuwa also blamed the situation for some of the protests witnessed on the route recently.

"So you can see that the situation has taken another dimension and this has been happening, they do all these in the night. Anybody that doubts us can come in the night between 10pm down and see what is happening. Even recently there was a riot by some truck drivers who protested long stay on the queue without being allowed into the ports. They even allowed people who were to pay to drive against the traffic, it is also one of the reasons why they protested", he concluded.